back to article Players, insert coin: PlayStation 4, Xbox One top up AMD's coffers

AMD's provision of processors for Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 consoles appear to have worked its magic on the chip maker's bottom line. The company's revenue for its fourth quarter of 2013 came in just above analysts' estimates, and significantly above its earnings for the same quarter in its previous fiscal …

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  1. Wade Burchette

    This is good

    If AMD can make enough profit, then they can produce a CPU to compete with Intel. If AMD can produce a CPU that can compete with Intel, then Intel will be forced to get better. And then we all win. Competition makes the world better.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This is good

      IIRC I believe there was some back room talking that happened inside Intel about letting AMD have the console market (at least this round of them). By letting AMD have the console market it also keeps them around as a competitor in the x86 market and Intel can avoided any issues regarding market monopoly legalities.

      Also I imagine Intel probabily wasn't to interested in the amount of time and money it would have taken their r&d teams to match the gpu capabilities AMD have in such a short time. They probably have a longer roadmap to achieving in that area.

      1. Sandtitz Silver badge

        Re: This is good @AC

        "about letting AMD have the console market (at least this round of them"

        They weren't even in the competition.

        Intel has no products that could compete with the AMD graphics in 1080p resolution. They could have provided a cheap CPU and the GPU could have come from NV or AMD but a single chip configuration is easier to implement and uses less PCB space and the cooling is also simpler. Both of which brings the costs down.

        Also I imagine Intel probabily wasn't to interested in the amount of time and money it would have taken their r&d teams to match the gpu capabilities AMD have in such a short time. They probably have a longer roadmap to achieving in that area.

        Money doesn't help that much if they don't have the know-how to match the GPU.

        Once in a while Intel is touting their graphics as a real contender for the performance crown, but fail dismally (i740) or fail to produce anything at all (so-called Larrabee). AMD and Nvidia one-upping each other all the time and this fierce competition really leaves everyone else in the dust.

        Intel is content on providing good enough performance for casual gaming on low resolutions.

      2. Piro Silver badge

        Re: This is good

        That sounds like bollocks, basically. Intel has no powerful GPU for gaming, but AMD makes suitable CPUs and GPUs.

        Seems like a matter of simply going to a single source that can put all you need on one die, at a low price.

        1. YARR

          CPU no longer important for consoles

          This generation MS and Sony have learnt a lesson from Nintendo and the rise of gaming on tablets : people want small, quiet, low power, reliable and resilient consoles. The AMD cpus are low power bobcat cores clocked at about half the speed of the previous generation. They are woefully underpowered compared to the Bulldozer/Steamroller cores that have struggled to play catch up with Intel, despite there being eight of them. More slow cores are harder to develop for than fewer fast cores, so they have obviously made CPU power efficiency a priority over ease of development. That being so, meant Intel's low power product, the Atom offered no advantage compared AMD.

      3. Levente Szileszky

        Re: This is good

        Nonsense. Intel sunk over a BILLION dollar and several years into Larrabee, only to shut it down eventually, admitting they didn't get anywhere with it...

        ...Intel simply has no clue how to make an advanced, high-end, fast GPU, they never had and never will on their own thus not in a position to even compete on the console market.

        FWIW it was always an issue for Intel and I was kinda surprised when they didn't move in on ATI quickly back in 2006 and let AMD pick it up for a mere $5-6B instead.

  2. Charles Manning

    Damn this is confusing...

    Most of us probably would like to see AMD make some headway here, but that would mean Microsoft's XBoxen doing well too.... Oh the pain.

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